Must unlock iPhone 5 before activating 6? (AT&T)

[mamacheese]

Just spoke to an AT&T chat representative (who was awesome and hilarious). According to her, I will need to submit my unlock requests on my iPhone 6 (soon to be out of contract) before activating my iPhone 6. Is this correct, and what's needed?

The problem is that I am upgrade eligible but not yet unlock eligible, which is when my contract ends (9/22). If what she said is true, then what it means is that I can preorder and get my iPhone 6 on 9/19 but can do nothing with it than to wait, if what I want is to unlock my iPhone 5? If so, that's going to be a pretty stinky weekend.

 

[jbachandouris]

Just spoke to an AT&T chat representative (who was awesome and hilarious). According to her, I will need to submit my unlock requests on my iPhone 6 (soon to be out of contract) before activating my iPhone 6. Is this correct, and what's needed?

The problem is that I am upgrade eligible but not yet unlock eligible, which is when my contract ends (9/22). If what she said is true, then what it means is that I can preorder and get my iPhone 6 on 9/19 but can do nothing with it than to wait, if what I want is to unlock my iPhone 5? If so, that's going to be a pretty stinky weekend.

No, you do NOT have to unlock your iPhone 5. The only advantage to unlocking it is that you will be able to ask for more when/if you sell it. Unlocking has nothing to do with upgrading to the iPhone 6.

 

[mamacheese]

Well yeah, I know that. That's not the question.

The question is, if you want to unlock your iPhone 5, what is the correct procedure for doing it? Do you have to unlock it before activating the 6

 

[Rigby]

Just spoke to an AT&T chat representative (who was awesome and hilarious). According to her, I will need to submit my unlock requests on my iPhone 6 (soon to be out of contract) before activating my iPhone 6. Is this correct, and what's needed?

No, this is not true. I unlocked my old iPhone 4 after switching to an iPhone 5. You don't even have to have a SIM card in the phone. Just request the unlock from AT&T once the old phone is out contract and, once approved, follow Apple's instructions.

 

[jbachandouris]

The official way is to go to ATT's unlock site. You enter you IMEI and request an unlock. A few days later, you'll get an answer. You may need to upgrade first so you'll get approved for sure.

 

[mamacheese]

Ok, so from what you two are saying, seems like it would be safe to:

1. activate iPhone 6 as soon as I get it
2. request the unlock once the iPhone 5s are unlock eligible (9/22), and that there shouldn't be any problems.

I had tried submitting a request now and that's when I learned I am not unlock eligible yet. If indeed the unlocks will go through just fine then I will certainly not wait around on my iPhone 5 for no reason...

 

[Rigby]

Yes. Bottom line is that you can unlock eligible devices anytime. It doesn't matter if you activate another device or not.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Ok, so from what you two are saying, seems like it would be safe to:

1. activate iPhone 6 as soon as I get it
2. request the unlock once the iPhone 5s are unlock eligible (9/22), and that there shouldn't be any problems.

I had tried submitting a request now and that's when I learned I am not unlock eligible yet. If indeed the unlocks will go through just fine then I will certainly not wait around on my iPhone 5 for no reason...

Partly correct if the iPhone 5 is still under contract. You have to ride out the 14-day return period on the iPhone 6 before they'll honor the online unlock request on the offed iPhone 5. This policy is to prevent people from gaining the unlock then returning the new iPhone 6. Submit the unlock request 2 weeks after you've activated the iPhone 6. Otherwise, you can do it anytime once it's out of contract.